pollen decentralized wireless

Pollen Mobile gets a seed round from various VCs and angels to  accelerate the development of the world’s first privacy-focused, user owned and operated mobile wireless carrier.

Tough industry.   Pagarba tried to do a disaster emergency broadband like device using Lora , Blockchain, p2p communication protocols, encryption and other security features,  but it's hard to compete against the Verizons and At&Ts.  

And now first responders networks exist with far monetary backing plus Elon Musk has his satellite internet .

I do wonder how pollen is different vs helium and other internet communication startups and platforms though.  

 Pollen empowers  its user community to build, own, and operate a decentralized network infrastructure utilizing blockchain, the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum, and other open source technologies. 

The project has already deployed infrastructure in San Francisco, New York City, and Los Angeles, and last week completed its first nationwide hardware drop. 

Sounds like helium in a way.  Hopebox had some similar ideas and implementations but geared more towards emergency and disaster communication and saving lives.  

NFTs , deathtech & to much chaos

I was reading this article today about a cool new deathtech web3 metaverse NFT like startup called Remember Metaverse.   

Cool concept and possibilities to improve end of life and bereavement proceses and memories and the digitizing of loved ones who passed away.  

However you read things like this, 

" The pre-sale of the Remember Memorial Stone NFTs will go live at 2:00 am UTC on February 23. But get in quick—there are only 50 Whitelist spots to mint the NFTs for 0.1 ETH. After this, the price will rise to 0.125 ETH for the phase 1 sale set for 2:00 am UTC on February 24."

It's sounds more like  another rip off 

scam than a legit empathetic business statup model.     

This is one of their pitches, 

" Remember Metaverse is a project like no other in the web3 space. For the first time ever, thanks to Remember’s Memorial Stone NFTs, you can commemorate your loved ones in the metaverse "

That sounds like a great concept and maybe supporting local artists or a loved ones favorite charity would be an awesome memorial and gesture.  

But In an end-of-life funeral based  industry that's been filled with many issues and stories of price gouging and  shady used car sales person vibes ,  remember metaverse and their website and pitch and blog press releases come off as another quick money grab by a bunch of silicon valley folks trying to capitalize on deathtech and NFTs and the metaverse.   

Interesting and well thought out concept but "buy now limited time offer before price goes up" is sketchy at best and plain evil at worse.   

Web3 should be more 'do the right thing' and 'dont be evil' as much as they can, not come off as another scam ripping off grieving folks.  

Disappointing and the metaverse aspect designs look good.